Leadership through Listening

Master Joiners have ten regions across New Zealand. Each region is unique and strives to be proactive for both Master Joiner members and industry. Nelson –Marlborough Master Joiners takes in the top of the South Island and is led by Myles Sellers. Myles shares what has been achieved for the region by leveraging good communication.

Great leaders are great listeners, and therefore my message is a simple one – talk less about you and your business and listen more.

The best leaders are proactive, strategic, and intuitive listeners. They recognize knowledge and wisdom are not gained by talking, but by listening. Take a moment and reflect back on any great leader who comes to mind … you’ll find they are very adept at reading between the lines. The best leaders possess the uncanny ability to understand what is not said, witnessed, or heard.

Now I have your attention I would like to expand upon this point and explain how we have approached and gained some significant success’s in our region.

In 2012 the regions’ joinery business discussed becoming the 10th branch of the Master Joiners, we listened, within 6 months we established a branch. Seven years on we have 21 members that represent 90% of the region’s joinery and manufacturers.

In 2013, it was raised by our members that we need a strategy, we listened, a vision to develop our people and our business’s was agreed. In 2014 our members talked of the draining of talent from our industry and the seepage of skills through retirement, we listened. A skills audit was implemented, and the outcomes indicates that we had only 8 apprentices in training with 60% of our workforce over 45. In 2020 we have 42 apprentices, a growing work force and an aspirational pathway for young people.

In 2014, our members celebrated success at the National Master Joiners’ awards and we discussed how could we become more involved. 2020 saw our 5th regional award event with 186 category entries, the last 5 years have seen unprecedented success on a national level and far greater regional participation. Quite simply Nelson Marlborough provide the largest number of entries from any individual region.

In 2016 it was raised by our membership that we needed to have greater local exposure, we listened. In 2020 we have active Instagram, Facebook and an incredibly region focused website.

Our vision remains strong and our journey continues. We have developed significant relationships with our training providers, in return they have innovated and adapted. They have with our support introduce new pathways, new techniques to train. We work together talk together and support each other. We are represented both on regional and national industry advisory groups. We continue to listen to our members and provide solutions to their needs.

Training and education remain at the forefront, our local joinery business leaders have listened to presentations as far reaching as Dust Management to Human Resources to working with Architects!

Want to become a better joinery business’s? Want to become a leading master joiners branch? Stop talking and start listening. Start investing not saving. There is far more to be gained by surrendering the floor than by dominating it. It is easy with our busy lives and busy business’s to become internally focused and fail to realise the value of everything that can be gleaned from the minds of others.

It is simply not possible to be leader without being a great communicator. It has remained our regions focus to have training and development central to our agenda, our social media forums are active, and we focus on listening. The big miss for most leaders is that they fail to understand that the purpose of communication is not to message, but to engage.

Myles Sellers President Nelson Marlborough Region